Friday, September 23, 2005

Friday forecast

I am off on a holiday to the Lake District (although don't be too surprised if you see a few favourable freebie-boilerplate quotes attributed to "prominent Watch blogger bruschettaboy" in the Swaziland Sex Tourism Gazette). I think they have the Observer and Times up there but probably not the Evening Standard or the internet, so you lot are on your honour for this week's contest.

5 Comments:

I have a vague feeling Cohen might say something about the Liberal Democrats, finally repudiating his recommendation to vote for them or the Socialist Alliance in 2001. He has the conference to hang it on.

Either that or an announcement that he's leaving the Obs to take the Sunday Times's dollar.

Well. Lawyers (and by extension, courts, though he doesn't go into that) are essential for civil liberties. Good for Nick.Elect the House of Lords (as promised in 1997). Not a huge burning issue for me, but a consistent and sensible one for him. Good for Nick. (Back to hating New Labour as well -- for cherry-picking from their own manifesto.)I'm not convinced at all by the CRE on the ghettoisation thing. I think they would say that. The point of Greenpeace is to discover new environmental threats; the point of the Board of Deputies to wail "Antisemitism" at just about anyone who hasn't got a beard; and the point of the CRE is to claim we're only one policy away from Balkan-like ethnic war.Then he says, "I think it's fair to say that in Northern Ireland, nearly every IRA murderer went to a Catholic faith school and every UDA murderer went to a Protestant state school." Nearly ...? WTF? Mind you, he calls my MP a mediocrity so all in all a very good performance from Nick.

Yes, I think this just about counts as 'reaching out to the left', complete with reference to "a new Labour movement... so contemptuous of British liberty". Not quite the Blairite I was worried he was becoming yet, then.

"England. I think it's fair to say that in Northern Ireland, nearly every IRA murderer went to a Catholic faith school and every UDA murderer went to a Protestant state school."

Since those are the only two kinds of school there are in NI I would add that it is fair to say that every peace activist, scout leader and guy who helps little old ladies across the road also went to one or the other.